Post navigation

The Olympus E-M1 — a preview of coming attractions

If you follow the camera gear press at all, you’ve likely heard that OlympusÂ has announced their new flagship digital camera: the OMD E-M1. Â If you’re a dedicated Canon or Nikon or Sony or Pentax (etc.) shooter, this likely won’t matter much to you.

But for those of us that have been users of the 4/3 system cameras, or of the newer micro-4/3 system gear — it’s a very big deal.

It’s basically been a foregone conclusion of late that OlympusÂ had decided to abandon the now 10-year-old 4/3 system. Â There wasn’t any official announcement to that effect, but the last 4/3 camera (the E-5) was released late in 2010, and available 4/3 lenses are solid performers but not exactly spring chickens either.

So OlympusÂ has now officially stated that the E-M1 will sit at the top of their line-up, replacing the 4/3 system E-5. Â The E-M5 carries on one rung below the E-M1 (hopefully the now-confusing numbering will get cleaned up with the next release cycles), and the Pen series digital cameras hanging on below that.

All well and good, but what’s the new camera got to offer? Â The E-M1 is in many ways an improved E-M5, so on a pure specification basis, here are the big differences I see:

Better ergonomics (check out the grip, much like what the E-M5 only offers with an accessory purchase)

Improved sensor and image processor — anti-aliasing moves from a filter on the sensor to software in the processor, better overall low-light response, built-in phase detection pixels on the sensor (giving it good handling of 4/3 lenses), smaller autofocus target points

Improved viewfinder (essentially the same as what’s in the VF-4 accessory unit released with the E-P5)

WiFi and remote operation

Focus peaking (a godsend for manual focusing of lenses from the pre-digital days)

Improved weather sealing, more-rugged body frame

I’d love to be able to give you a first-person report of this unit’s handling, and show you pictures I’ve taken with it — but unfortunately I’m not one of the lucky few that received a review unit before the release. Â I’m waiting along with everybody else that placed a pre-order, and is now waiting for their prize to arrive in the mail (hopefully in October).

But for now, I’ll do what I can do — and that’s compare the E-M1 user manual to the E-M5 user manual to sort out some less-publicized differences and commonalities between the two cameras.

The level gauge is now displayed on the bottom of the viewfinder when the shutter button is held halfway down (see also custom menu J, below)

Live view monitor display

The state of your WiFi connection is now among the small icons along the top of the screen

Auto-focus targets

Choose one or all of 35 zones

With a micro-4/3 lens, choose one or all of 81 zones (full sensor); with a 4/3 lens, choose one or all of 37 zones (covering a rough diamond in the center of the sensor). Â “Info” button can be used to chose regular-sized single auto-focus target zone, or smaller sized target.

Color creator

New function, allows for real-time adjustment of hue and saturation (only adjusts JPEG, not RAW image).

Old option of Movie+Still (take still when movie recording ends) has been deleted

Custom menu J — Built-in EVF

Level gauge display (on button half-press) is turned on/off here.

Custom menu K — Utility

New option for AF focus adjust (+/- 20 steps)

One-touch white balance

Program to your choice of button, save to one of two presets

Use pre-defined button on front of camera body, or program to your choice of button; save to one of four presets

Summary

So what’s to make of this beast so far? Â For me, the big gains are (in no particular order)…

Faster focusing — both for moving subjects with a micro-4/3 lens and for anything with a 4/3 lens (according to reviews). Â Hurray for PDAF!

Smaller / more autofocus target zones

Improved sharpness, thanks to the removal of the anti-aliasing filter from the sensor

WiFi, both because it will let me use my phone as a smart remote control, and because it allows for geotagging (although I know this will devour my phone’s battery life)

Focus peaking

Microphone jack

Pre-defined HDR / exposure bracketing button

Improved body frame

And I’m extremely happy that it uses an already-existing battery design (the BLN-1 — so we’re not trapped in the battery limbo that results from popular new cameras and a low initial supply of spare batteries for them). Â What I’m not wild about so far…

The lever that will now double the ways I can use the exterior buttons (making it pretty certain I’ll forget where I programmed things to). Â Good thing you can disable this if you so choose, and I’m hoping I’ll get used to it anyway.

Given that the E-M1 is billed as being a “Pro” camera, I wish OlympusÂ had removed iAuto and the “Art filter” modes to help de-clutter things (at least they provide two mode dial settings you can reprogram for other uses). Â Photo Story also strikes me as being more appropriate to a point-and-shoot than a Pro camera.

So, all-in-all, a big win if you ask me. Â But this is just what I’ve gathered from scouring the user’s manual, I’ll revisit this review when OlympusÂ sends me my OM-D E-M1 in mid-October.

4 thoughts on “The Olympus E-M1 — a preview of coming attractions”

I would add the Small AF Box as well, this is very important as Olympus never really had a “Spot” Af as Panasonic does. The Manual shows you can reduce the AF Box even smaller now, and the manual reflects this…big improvement!